The Holiday Rundown

The Holiday Rundown

Dec 27

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.  Christmas Eve was spent at home getting ready for the  Big Day!  Last minute baking and some precooking.  I managed to burn up another mixer!!!  It kind of sent me into a tizzy since I had plans to make a dessert for after Christmas dinner but that was not going to happen.  Then it was all about getting everyone’s gifts together and under the trees and hanging the stockings.

This year I painted paper mache sleighs for gift baskets for our parents.  I like putting together gift baskets and this year I found these sleighs and thought they would work out great.  I like how they turned out but like everything around the holidays, I tend to push things to the last minute .  I am vowing that next year if I paint or make any gifts that they will have to be done a lot earlier….

We had a very nice Christmas.  Our son every year announces, “this is the best Christmas ever!” and this year was no different.   He is a Christmas fanatic.  We spent Christmas day here at home with my parents and Brandon’s parents.  We had a very nice day.  I look forward to having everyone at Christmas.  We eat lots, open gifts, visit and eat some more.  Then when our parents go home there’s no time to relax because it’s time for Brandon and me to play with our son and all his new things.  We all received wonderful gifts and I got a stand mixer!!!!!  No more burning up my mixer every time I bake.  It at least has a two year warranty so if I do burn it up I can return it!!

Here are some assorted pics of our Christmas decorations and some gifts….

This year our son got sick with a cold prior to Christmas and now Brandon is down with the cold/flu and I am getting it.  Every year someone has to be sick over the holidays, this year it’s all of us…. argh!  But now it’s time for us to get well and get back to the normal daily grind, well at least until New Years….

Happy Holidays!

Melissa

Gingerbread Houses and Holiday Hub-Bub

Gingerbread Houses and Holiday Hub-Bub

Dec 19

It’s been a while since I posted but with the holidays approaching there has been so much to do.  We attended Brandon’s holiday party for work.  This year it was held at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.  What a beautiful site for a party.  It was beautifully decorated with lighted live Christmas trees, window displays and gingerbread houses.  Each year they hold a gingerbread competition and  I have always wanted to go and see them but never have.  I am so glad I got to see them this year.  They are amazing!  I took my camera and it seems that the gingerbread houses are pretty much all I took pictures of.

Last weekend the son and I made our second ever gingerbread house.  I found the saltbox house pattern online at Bob Villa’s site and used Martha Stewart’s gingerbread recipe.  The only problem we had was we destroyed my mixer.  It wasn’t a very good mixer anyway.  We were finishing mixing the gingerbread and the mixer started smelling,  then made some grinding noises, then started smoking, then no more mixer.   So here is our Gingerbread House….

I have been busy painting Christmas gifts, tags and a floor cloth for my kitchen.  I am trying to get most everything done before the end of this week so I can get to baking cookies.   The son was off from school  today due to an ice storm so he started his Christmas vacation early (17 days off, argh!!) and Brandon will be on vacation next week.

Brandon has been busy working on a commission nutcracker.  He has been busy with designing the piece and now will be hard at work carving.  I’m very excited to see it completed it will be very unique to what has been done before.  More to come with that as it progresses….

I will post soon with pictures of our decorations and things we’re working on…

Happy Holidays!!

Melissa

Nutcrackers Listed, Christmas Decorating, New Items!!!

Nutcrackers Listed, Christmas Decorating, New Items!!!

Dec 04

This week we’ve listed a Bear Figural Nutcracker and the Gazing Hound Nutcracker on Ebay.  Brandon is designing new and unique nutcrackers and has been busy working in his workshop.  He bought new dust collection system and has been busy making room for it and installing it.  It is a lot bigger than what he was using before and should make the workshop much cleaner requiring less time for clean-up and more time for just working.

Last weekend we stared putting up some of our outdoor decorations for Christmas.  It’s been hard getting them out this year due to all the snow we’ve been getting.  We have more to do and when they are completed I will post a video of them or pictures.

Almost all the inside decorating is done.  Our trees are all decorated but throughout the season I will keep adding things we make or discover.  We have plans to make a gingerbread house and make live wreaths and planters for outside.   The son and I make them with greenery from around our yard.  They are a favorite of mine and he just thinks it’s fun to go “pick’n” in the field and woods around our home.

New Items Coming this week:  We added Hand Carved Wine Caddies and hand painted wine glasses to the web site.  You can purchase them directly from Ardoria.com through PayPal.

Also, Coming Soon our son is creating gift baskets full of bath goodies he creates, he has a great time making them and he wants to contribute to our website, too.

Keep checking the blog and website for upcoming new items……

Our cat, Molly, is getting into the Christmas spirit too!  She is quite a spunky feisty girl.  I was really surprised that she allowed me to put these on her and I still have all my fingers!

Until next time,

Melissa

Gazing Hound Figural Nutcracker Listed

Gazing Hound Figural Nutcracker Listed

Nov 23

It’s been a scattered week so the blog post got delayed, but better late than never.

We listed the Gazing Hound nutcracker on ebay and it ends today at noon.  It is a really neat piece.  We have the proto-type and I just love it!  He is very sleek and elegant.  The pictures for him on the listing do a good job showing his detail but he is even more awesome in person.

Brandon is busy designing some new unique figural nutcrackers.  Exciting things happening with them.  Since launching our website and selling on ebay we have met wonderful people who collect nutcrackers and they have shared with us some really good information.  We are rather new to this and as they have been collectors for many years they are helping us discover what’s out there.  There is so much to learn and it is all quite fascinating.

I have been busy trying to meet my goal of getting my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving.  I’m almost done!! Yay. Thanks to the the By Hand Fine Art and Craft Festival at the IX Center last weekend I am pretty close to done.  It is a wonderful event with very talented artists.  We attend each year and are never disappointed.  They do shows in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati.  If you get the opportunity to attend go.  The Cleveland show this year was even free admission due to the Fabulous Food Show running in conjunction with the art show.  Can’t beat that.

Along with shopping I’ve been painting Christmas items and we started decorating the house for the Holiday Season!  Every year it seems to take longer.  I get very nostalgic when decorating, everything has a story.  We have quite the mish-mash of items.  I sometimes think it would be nice to decorate with a “theme” but we just can’t do it.  It wouldn’t feel like Christmas without all our old favorites so it ends up an eclectic mix.

It’s been quite a snowy week here in the snow belt of Northeast Ohio.  I think we are going to get a break from it, which would be o.k with me.  We have well over a foot of snow on the ground and our new snow blower is officially broken in and we know it works.  Now we don’t need snow until Christmas!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving,

Melissa

New Week,The Holiday Rush and Exciting News

New Week,The Holiday Rush and Exciting News

Nov 10

It’s Monday and we’ve been busy getting projects designed and completed.  Brandon is working on completing a few nutcrackers and I am working on some Christmas Items (paintings, gift tags, ornaments, etc.).   Our cold and blustery weather is perfect to get us in the mood for Christmas.

This weekend was the start of our Christmas shopping and all of my favorite little shops had their Holiday Open Houses.  Friday I officially started shopping and I am already finding things are getting hard to find.  Saturday was shopping with our son.  We made it to one of his favorite stores, Cap Toys in Chesterland.   It’s a Lego lovers heaven.  They have the widest selection of Lego sets in our area with many huge displays.  Then it was on to less exciting but productive shopping.  Sunday I did make it to one of my favorites, The Breezewood in Bainbridge.  Santa and his elves arrived, they had Christmas cookies and drinks and the holiday decorations were beautiful.  Many new decorating ideas.  Hopefully I will get all my shopping done early to enjoy the season with less stress.

This week we have listed a Bear Nutcracker on Ebay, check it out. 

That brings us to the exciting news.  The Skull Nutcracker that listed on ebay a couple weeks ago sold.  It sold to and is going to be displayed at the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum.

We are really excited about this.  We have been collecting nutcrackers since our son was 3 years old.  His grandmother bought him one and he was completely fascinated with it.  Each year since we have bought at least one, sometimes more.  We look for unusual ones or ones that relate to something about the year.  We did however come to the point where they were getting too repetitive and a two years ago we couldn’t find one we wanted to purchase.  Brandon started looking for something more unique  than today’s commercial nutcrackers to buy for my Christmas present and discovered Black Forest Figural Nutcrackers.  He was seriously thinking of buying an antique figural nutcracker, of Otto von Bismark.  He thought he’d better ask what I thought before he bought one.  I saw it and liked it but because of a past bad experience with an antique (a story for next Halloween) that I would prefer not to have an antique.  That got his wheels turning.  He is an excellent woodcarver so why not make his own?  Shortly thereafter he carved his first bear nutcracker.  The prototype of the one now listed on Ebay.  Now our collection grows when he creates a new nutcracker.  I (we) get the prototype and I proudly display them all year as they are truly works of art.

That Christmas he created the Bear Nutcracker prototype he bought me The Art and Character of Nutcrackers as a gift.

The book is by Arlene Wagner of The Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum A National Heritage Foundation.  Arlene is an internationally recognized authority in the nutcracker craft.  This book is a wonderful photo compilation of the museum’s nutcracker collection and the history of Nutcrackers.  It is quite a wonderful turn of events that Brandon’s original design Skull Nutcracker will now have a home at the museum.

That’s some of what’s going on at Ardoria Studios.  Until next time,

Melissa

Our Halloween Decorations

Our Halloween Decorations

Nov 03

It’s time to start thinking about taking down the Halloween decorations.  I thought I would post some pictures of our Halloween decor.  So here they are:

On our hearth is one of my favorite pieces, Gus, a Disney Hitch Hiker Ghost.

I decorate our kitchen tree for just about every holiday.  I enjoy having a “Holiday” tree.  It makes everything more festive and gives me a place to display some of the items we create.

So that’s just some of our Halloween decorations.  We just acquired more for next year and we’re already making plans for next year.

Update:  The Skull Nutcracker sold and on the next post I will share with you the history of Brandon carving nutcrackers and also exciting news about the Skull Nutcracker.

Until next time, Melissa